“Too right!” Mallinson said with a flash of righteous fire in his eyes. “I should have taken a dim view of that indeed.”
“Yes. On balance it seemed politer and more prudent for us to come ‘snoop’, as Mr Jenks puts it, then leave, with you none the wiser.”
“Nonetheless, the upshot is here you are in my hallway, at a most inconsiderate hour. The discourtesy has been de facto done.”
“Regrettably, yes.”
At that moment a second man entered the hallway, via the same door that Mallinson had used. He was tall and slightly stooped, handsome in a rakish manner, with a stare of hawklike intensity. His hairline was receding, making a natural widow’s peak look even sharper and more pronounced. In many ways he reminded me of Holmes.
“You’re taking your time, Craig,” he said. He had a glass of wine in his hand and his words were ever so slightly slurred. “Who are these fellows? What’s all the fuss?”
“Nothing to concern yourself about, Josiah. I’m handling it.”
“Sir Josiah Partlin-Gray?” said Holmes.
“I am he,” said the new arrival. “Who might you be?”
“This is Mr Sherlock Holmes,” said Mallinson. “You know, the private detective. I told you about him. I’ve hired him to look into… what happened to Patrick.”
“Ah yes, the great, the famous Sherlock Holmes,” said Partlin-Gray. “May I shake you by the hand? An honour.”
“The honour is all mine,” said Holmes. “I recognised you from the newspapers. I had no idea Mr Mallinson was friends with so eminent a personage as yourself.”
“You flatter me, sir. Craig and I go back a long way. When I learned about his son’s appalling mishap, I journeyed down to Sussex post haste. Craig proved a great comfort to me during a dark period in my life. I hope I can be of similar use to him in his own time of trial.”
Holmes turned to me. “This is my friend Dr John Watson, who likewise has seen me through many a dark period, and also been by my side at my moments of greatest triumph.”
I shook hands with Partlin-Gray, who had a remarkably strong grip. I, too, recognised the fellow, if only by name. Sir Josiah Partlin-Gray was a steel millionaire, one of the most illustrious in all the land, if not the most illustrious. There were few industrialists who could compete with him in terms of income or eminence. He owned steel mills all over the world, not just in England, and he was also patron of numerous charities and a philanthropist par excellence, annually donating thousands of pounds of his own money to worthy causes. Queen Victoria herself had knighted him at the turn of the century, one of the last such titles she conferred before her death.
“And I’m Caleb Smith,” said Reptilio, pushing in. “You can call me Reptilio. An honour to meet you, my good sir. I’ve not been in the same room as an actual knight before.”
Partlin-Gray shook hands with the snake-featured contortionist circumspectly, throwing a glance at Mallinson as if to say, What on earth is an oddity like this doing here?
“You are, I see, not just friends,” said Holmes to the two plutocrats. “You are also members of the same Mayfair club. The Colonial and Overseas, if I’m not mistaken.”
“How did you know that?” Partlin-Gray asked.
“It is as plain as anything. Mr Mallinson has on the club tie. Those blue and green stripes, with the emblem of the globe embroidered just below the knot, make it readily identifiable. You yourself sport cufflinks with the same emblem upon them.”
“Of course, of course,” said Partlin-Gray. “I see your famous powers of observation remain as acute as ever.”
“I hope so,” said Holmes. “It makes sense that you’re both in the Colonial and Overseas, since you both have another thing in common. You both have significant business interests outside Britain’s borders, which is one of the criteria for membership of that particular establishment. Mr Mallinson mines minerals in several countries, one of his principal sources of income being the vast quantities of potassium nitrate, sulphur and tantalite he unearths in Egypt. You meanwhile, Sir Josiah, run steel mills on more or less every continent, but most notably in Scandinavia, where your wife hails from. I’m sorry, I should say your late wife.”
Partlin-Gray cast down his gaze and shifted his feet uncomfortably.
“I beg your pardon, that was tactless of me,” said Holmes.
“No. No. It’s quite all right.”
“She died only this summer, in her native Norway. This was the ‘dark period’ to which you referred a moment ago.”
Partlin-Gray moved across the hallway to stand by a massive oak sideboard on which stood a pair of elaborately branching candelabras. He clasped his hands stiffly behind his back. “As I said, Craig helped me through that very difficult time. Inga’s sudden death nearly unhinged me, but he was a rock. If I can be half as helpful to him now as he mourns for poor young Patrick…”
“You already have been, Josiah,” Mallinson said, “and will, I’m sure, continue to be. Now listen here, Mr Holmes. A moment ago you spoke of discourtesy. I will respond only with courtesy, though I do not feel you deserve it. You wish to see my biplane? Very well. I will show it to you myself.”
“Now?” said Holmes.
“Yes, now. No time like the present. Josiah, if you’ll excuse us?”
Partlin-Gray waved a hand. “Do as you wish, Craig. Occupy one’s mind and one’s time, and one will dwell less on one’s loss.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE DREAMS OF ICARUS
Thus it was that we found ourselves back at the barn, escorted there by Mallinson himself and also by Jenks, who lit our way with a battery-powered tungsten filament torch. The gamekeeper kept his shotgun to hand, broken over the crook of his arm, with a fresh cartridge loaded in the empty barrel, just in case.
“Take as long as you like,” Mallinson said, undoing the padlock. “Snoop away. Be my guest. I don’t know what you’re hoping to find, but I am confident you’ll turn up nothing untoward.”
The aircraft, at close hand, was even larger than I had imagined. Its upper wing spanned nearly thirty feet, and its length from stem to stern was not much less than that. The smells of canvas, engine oil and wood varnish that radiated from it were strong, almost overcoming the barn’s more traditional smells of hay, earth and timber. I saw canisters of fuel sitting in what had once been a loosebox, along with tools, spare parts and various greasy rags. It occurred to me that all of this made the barn a terrific fire hazard. One stray spark, and the place would go up like a tinder box. I did my best to banish the thought.
Jenks set his torch down on an empty feed trough, its beam pointing squarely at the biplane, and by its brilliant light Holmes commenced his scrutiny. He traipsed back and forth beside the Grahame-White, and sometimes went up on tiptoe and at other times down on his haunches. At one stage he even crawled beneath the machine.
“How fast does she fly?” he asked Mallinson.
“That’s a three-cylinder, fifty-horsepower engine. Top speed is supposed to be fifty miles per hour but I reckon I’ve had her up to sixty.”
“And her endurance?”
“The longest I’ve had her out is three and a half hours.”
“She’s a pusher rather than a tractor type. How does that affect performance?”
Mallinson looked quizzical but also pleasantly surprised. “Why, Mr Holmes, I seem to have come across a fellow aviation enthusiast.”
“More of an informed bystander.”
“But you clearly know about aeroplanes.”
“A little. I have an enquiring mind.”
And, I thought to myself, a mind that knows how to disarm others and gain their allegiance by establishing a common bond, however tenuous and contrived.
“A rear-mounted pusher prop, all agree, gives a smoother flight,” said Mallinson. “The Type Seven is a beast at take-off. You need heavy rudder input to counteract the P-factor – that is, the torque from the moving propeller which puts asymmetrical thrust on the airframe
when there’s a high angle of incidence and makes her yaw slightly. But once she’s up and levelled out, she’s fine. Three pounds per square inch wingloading means she dances in the air like a ballerina. Though, like a ballerina, she can be temperamental and highly strung at times. She certainly doesn’t like a cross-wind much, but then show me the kite that does.”
“Manned flight is a science, isn’t it?” said Holmes, running a hand along one of the rear booms. “So much knowledge is required.”
“Yet once the technicalities are mastered, it becomes an art form. Aeroplanes are a harbinger of the future, Mr Holmes. That is part of my fascination with them. We are on the cusp of a glorious era of mechanisation, our inventiveness proceeding in leaps and bounds, in aviation and in many other disciplines. With aircraft we have begun to realise the dreams of Icarus. Who knows what we might next achieve in that sphere? I would not be surprised if one day dirigibles are crossing between here and America as commonly as ships, and in half the time. Nor is a transatlantic multiple-occupancy heavier-than-air aircraft, carrying both passengers and cargo, beyond the realms of possibility.”
“The dreams of Icarus,” Holmes echoed. “A ringing turn of phrase. I note, by the way, that your Grahame-White is itself multiple-occupancy. It has the capacity to seat two people.”
“It does. Few Type Sevens have been made in that configuration. Mine is something of a rarity.”
“The passenger, or perhaps navigator, sits here.” Holmes indicated a space just to the fore of the upper wing, fitted with a crude, skeletal chair. “In front. The pilot goes behind, nearer the engine.”
“That way the control wires do not have to pass around or through the passenger’s section of the cockpit. The connection from joystick and pedals to engine and ailerons is direct, without risk of being impeded.”
“Of course. And both passenger and pilot have harnesses to keep them secured during flight.”
“A necessary precaution. Let us say that a sudden wind shear catches the pilot unawares. He momentarily loses control. The plane tips over. There is a very good chance of being ejected. Centrifugal force keeps one in place during a sustained aerobatic manoeuvre of the kind that the Frenchman Adolphe Pégoud and the Russian Pyotr Nesterov are so fond of demonstrating, such as a barrel roll or a loop-the-loop. But it does not have the same effect during a sudden, chaotic lurch that throws the plane off its horizontal axis. Those harnesses have saved many a life, let me tell you.”
“Quite, quite.”
“Well, have you seen enough?”
Briefly Holmes studied a stack of clay plant pots ranged against one wall. Then he said, “I believe I have.”
“Then,” said Mallinson, “would you be so good as to share with us the reason for this expedition?”
“No.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said no. I have been testing a theory. I have come to a conclusion. That is all.”
Mallinson’s face darkened. “Do not trifle with me, Mr Holmes. You have put me to some inconvenience. You have disturbed me at a godforsaken hour, during a time of great personal trial. Now you are being evasive. I have neither the leisure nor the patience to indulge your games. You looked at my plane for a reason, and I demand to know what it is.”
“You perhaps won’t want to hear it.”
“I most certainly do. And if I have to order Jenks to cock his gun and put it to this man’s head in order to force an answer out of you, then by heaven, sir, I will.”
Mallinson was pointing at Reptilio, who quailed at the threat.
Holmes shrugged. “You would be wasting your time. Mr Smith is of no concern to me. You heard him speak of his lack of affiliation to me. Shoot away.”
Reptilio let out a squeal of protest, little appreciating that, by disavowing him, Holmes had put him out of danger.
“Fair enough,” said Mallinson, “but I suspect the same isn’t true of Dr Watson.”
“Indeed not,” said Holmes, with a solicitous glance at me. “I would not have Watson’s life jeopardised for all the world. Very well. Here is the theory. It is my belief that standing before us here, stowed in this barn, in the guise of an aircraft, is a murder weapon.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
FIREPOTS
Silence ensued, during which Mallinson’s face darkened further, like clouds presaging a storm.
Eventually he said, in a voice far quieter than the thunder I had been expecting, “You had better qualify that statement, Mr Holmes, and the explanation had better be phenomenally good. Is this what I have hired you for? To accuse me of the murder of my own son?”
“Did I say that?” replied Holmes. “I am accusing you of nothing. I merely averred that your Grahame-White may well be implicated in Patrick’s death.”
“But what nonsense is this? Patrick jumped from Beachy Head. We all know that.”
“Patrick fell into the sea from a great height, that is what we know beyond all reasonable doubt. He could as easily have plummeted from an aeroplane as from a clifftop. If so, why not this very aeroplane?”
“I don’t see how it is even possible,” said Mallinson. “Are you telling me he went up in her, flew her over the Channel, and leapt out? My son, Mr Holmes, did not even know how to fly. The whole idea is preposterous.”
“I agree. For how would the plane have returned to land safely after Patrick leapt out? It’s not as if it is a homing pigeon. If, however, someone else were in the pilot’s seat and caused Patrick to be thrown out – that is altogether a more viable proposition.”
“It is not viable. It is barely sane.”
“I admit it pushes the limits of plausibility,” said Holmes. “That is why I was so reluctant to voice the idea, until you insisted with such vehemence that I did. A theory that is not yet fully formed is little better than no theory at all.”
“Who was the pilot in this fantastic scenario of yours? Not me, I can assure you.”
“No, not you. It couldn’t have been. The coroner has estimated the time of death to have been Friday night. This is borne out by Patrick’s disappearance from home on that same night. You have told us that you were up in London then, returning to Sussex the following morning. I have no doubt that this is so.”
“It absolutely is, and I can prove it,” said Mallinson, adding, “Not that I should have to. I spent all of Friday evening in the company of several esteemed colleagues at the Colonial and Overseas, not least among them Sir Josiah.”
“Ah.”
“Yes. Together, we dined, drank and played cards until well into the small hours. A few hands of euchre, then several rubbers of bridge, if you must know. Any number of other members of the club can attest to my presence there that night. I can give you names if you would like to check.”
“I wouldn’t want to put you to the trouble. Besides, the club must keep records of all comings and goings. A quick look at the attendance ledger for Friday night would, I am sure, incontrovertibly shore up your claim. However, there is still the matter of the scorch marks out on the airfield.”
“I can account for those.”
“As can I,” said Holmes. “Firepots.”
“Firepots?” I said.
“Earthenware containers for fire.”
“I know what they are, Holmes. But what is their relevance here?”
“Did you not observe these?” my friend said, gesturing at the stack of what I had taken to be plant pots.
“I saw them,” I said. “I did not think anything of them.”
Holmes rolled his eyes. Still, after all these years, he was exercised by my inability to spot what he thought were obvious clues. “Most of them bear smut marks around the rim. They will have held naphtha gel, inset with a wick, generating a clear bright flame that will burn for several hours. Spaced out in a line, they may be used to illuminate a pathway – or indeed a runway. To facilitate night flying. Is that not so, Mr Mallinson?”
“Very shrewdly deduced, Mr Holmes,” said Mallinson. “I
have been known to venture aloft on moonlit nights. It is possibly a greater thrill even than daytime flying. One truly feels one is among the stars, part of the universe.”
“A greater risk too, surely. Without landmarks being clearly visible, how do you navigate?”
“Practice. Repetition. Familiarisation. I know most of the towns hereabouts by the pattern of their lights, recognising one from another by size and street layout. Newhaven, for instance, looks quite distinct from Hastings or Hailsham, or even Eastbourne itself. The shape of each is unique, like a constellation. Then there are the actual constellations. They help. The North Star invariably restores my sense of direction, should I by chance become disorientated mid-flight. I am also versed in the intervals and repetitions of the various lighthouses along the coast.”
“And once you are close to Settleholm again, the firepots guide you back in to land.”
“Just so.” Mallinson looked wistful for a moment as he considered the uncomplicated delights of aviation in the midst of his present misery. I felt for the man. All the assurances of his world had, it seemed, been snatched away from him in one fell swoop.
His stern demeanour reasserted itself. “Your contention, Mr Holmes, is that somebody, without my knowledge or say-so, flew my plane the night before last, having inveigled Patrick into being its passenger. This person was then somehow able to – to eject Patrick? Is that what you reckon?”
“Sending him down to his death somewhere out in the Channel, where the seabed mud is different from the mud closer to shore.”
“The mud?”
“The mud clinging to his body. The tide then washed him back in a day and a half later.”
“Well then, I suppose the obvious question is who. Who did this?”
“That I cannot say.”
Sherlock Holmes - Gods of War Page 12